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My HIPEC experience and pancreatic cancer
I had mentioned having the HIPEC procedure in one of the other discussions and there was interest from others in more discussion, so here goes. Pancreatic cancer was detected in my peritoneal fluid in June of 2022. After 14 chemo treatments of folfirinox, I was a candidate for the HIPEC procedure. I had my first HIPEC procedure early January of this year (2023) at Mayo in Rochester. I was out for roughly 4 hours, with the actual HIPEC procedure taking I think around 2 hours. The procedure also involved an overnight in the hospital for observation. Post procedure, I was a bit bloated and had a little initial abdominal discomfort and was on a 10-pound lifting restriction for 4 weeks. I must add the disclaimer though that I've been told I'm not the typical patient ... I've had no ill effects from the chemo, HIPEC, radiation, and major surgery that I've had. After the first HIPEC, I had radiation followed by major surgery to remove my spleen, gallbladder, tumor debulking, internal radiation, and another HIPEC in late March of 2023. Now I'm on a bloodwork and scan monitoring schedule every 3 months.
I am so very grateful to the doctors and support team at Mayo in Rochester for believing in me and not giving up on me. They truly live the Mayo motto, "The needs of the patient come first," and are not afraid to take a chance on someone like me who had been told by other doctors that I had no chance of surviving this cancer. I know that I'm not necessarily cured ... but I do know that with this team behind me ... I've got a chance!
The link to read up some in the HIPEC procedure is:
https://cancerblog.mayoclinic.org/2023/01/18/new-chemotherapy-approach-for-late-stage-cancers/
NEVER GIVE UP!
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Hi- I was wondering if you can let me know which Dr put your husband on Keytruda. We were told it wasn’t for PC but we’re interested in hearing more since you’ve had success.
You are correct, it is not usually recognized for Keytruda. The critieria that it can work is met with information from the GI oncologist at Oregon Health and Science University, OHSU, Portland, OR, where my husband had his surgery and the chemo. The pathology reports were reviewed and found that his tumors remarkably and unusually filled the critieria that had to be met to use Keytruda. My husband had many many mutations. That is the best I can explain it. The high number of mutations of a certain kind coincided with what Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug, was capable of zapping the cancer from his adrenal glands where it had metastasied to 6 months after the major surgery. Chemo wasn't working so they went back to the drawing board and reviewed all that was available on my husband's tumors and found he met the critieria. For him it brought back his quality of life, although we still of course have to deal with the digestive and immunity effects of the surgical removal of his organs with the tumors attached. The research is always moving forward. I appreciated President Biden's push for the interventions for cancer. Interventions are moving forward. The following article explains the mutations critieria for use of Keytruda, but is talking about lung cancer, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920921/ The next post is about use of pancreatic cancer and immunotherapy. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/pancreatic-cancer/treating/immunotherapy.html
There are likely some research papers on PubMed on the most recent developments in the use of it.But the cancer. org article gives more critieria, specific to Pancreatic cancer. Hope! for your search for successful interventions.
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